


Eboli's Gift

by Farfalla



Series: The AU In Which Posa Lives [1]
Category: Don Carlos | Don Carlo - Verdi/du Locle/Méry
Genre: 16th Century CE, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Bisexual Male Character, Crossdressing, Emotional, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Implied Relationships, M/M, Male Friendship, Operas, Pre-Slash, Rescue, Romantic Friendship, Royalty, Slash, Spain, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farfalla/pseuds/Farfalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is an AU (alternate universe) starting during the action of the opera, but deviating after Posa gets shot. What if the Princess Eboli showed up earlier, and with a different plan for helping Carlos?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eboli's Gift

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank MysticPenguin, Coleva, and Carroty Goodness for proofreading.
> 
> Yes, Prince Carlos really _is_ that emo in the original French libretto. Take it up with Joseph Méry.

"A stranger's presence can alone excuse  
This forced and measured tone. Are we not brothers?  
In future, let this puppet-play of rank  
Be banished from our friendship. Think that we  
Had met at some gay masking festival,  
Thou in the habit of a slave, and I  
Robed, for a jest, in the imperial purple.  
Throughout the revel we respect the cheat,  
And play our parts with sportive earnestness,  
Tripping it gayly with the merry throng;  
But should thy Carlos beckon through his mask,  
Thou'dst press his hand in silence as he passed,  
And we should be as one."  
\-- _Carlos speaking to Posa in Friedrich Schiller's original drama "Don Carlos, Prince of Spain"_

 

A shot punctured the night, and the Marquis de Posa fell, bleeding, into the Infante's arms.

"Oh, Heaven!" Carlos clutched at him as if his own mortal grasp could compete with the strength of the Almighty. He wished he could just hold him tightly enough so that he wouldn't be taken.

If only his heartbeat wasn't echoing through his head; if only his limbs hadn't gone soft like wilting flowers. _Oh, Rodrigo! You'll die to put me back on course for the throne, and yet I fear I'll collapse into it like a broken egg._

"Oh, Carlos--listen--"

As if Carlos could do anything else. He wanted to listen to Rodrigo forever; instead, slipping through his fingers were the man’s final five minutes--three hundred seconds. Each moment was now a treasure to him worth far more than any jewel his father had ever owned, and the only crown he wanted to wear was the string of precious breaths that remained for them to share.

"You were meant to reign, and I to die for you....."

They rested on the stone floor of the prison, now. Carlos's arms still encircled the dying friend resting in his lap. "My Carlos, your hand," Rodrigo begged.

Carlos enveloped his searching hand in both of his own. _I can't lose you...._ He didn't say a word out loud. He wanted to hear everything Rodrigo had to say, even if the dying man was repeating himself.

"I die... happy, knowing that I die to rescue the savior of Spain!"

Carlos buried his nose in Rodrigo's hair, starting to weep silently. _You were supposed to love me even when I was king._

He was so focused on preserving every minute that he didn't hear the approaching footsteps. Doña Ana de Mendoza, Princess of Eboli, appeared beside him in all her pompous, overdressed glory, and she was halfway through a paragraph of rapid-fire speech before he even looked up at her.

"Your Highness! Quickly, I've saved you. I've worked everything out. I promised the Queen I wouldn't let you down a second time. Or her. Oh, never mind. Come, quickly--I've told the guards to check on me in ten minutes so we've got to work quickly. I have a way out. I've brought you a disguise. I've even brought a charmed poultice in case you get shot during your escape. It'll save your life. Don't ask where I got it. Wait--what happened?"

"He's been shot."

"What?"

"He's going to die." Carlos decided that eventually, he might be embarrassed that Eboli was here as witness to his despairing tears, but as for right now, he was too consumed in them to care.

"I've got to get you out of here," Ana insisted, ferociously throwing something at him that she'd been carrying beneath her skirts. "Quick! Leave him and change into that."

"I can't leave him."

"What did she bring?" Rodrigo gasped.

"It's a woman's dress and veil," explained the Princess. "Carlos, put it on and make for the streets. They'll assume it's just me taking my leave. Then, in ten minutes, the guards will come back, as I've instructed them, and I'll be lying here on the ground. I'll say you escaped and knocked me down. I'll even add false details so that they don't know they're looking for someone in women's clothes."

"You said you have a poultice in case I get shot by the guards?" blurted Carlos, who'd only half listened.

"Yes, I--" Ana looked at him sharply.

"Give it to me."

She drew back in anger. "You'll give it to him!"

"I _have_ to. He's my life."

Ana threw up both hands in the air and growled in disgust. "Why do you love everybody but me?"

"You think I asked for this?" Carlos demanded. " _Any_ of this?"

"Why should I give him anything?"

"I'll do anything you ask, Doña Ana."

"Don't--" She turned away, staring into the far walls of the prison cell. "Don't tempt me to bargain you into a marriage that's as much of a trap for you as this chamber."

"Carlos, my faithful one, go with her... don't forget me, but don't try to save me at... this price...." Rodrigo leaned his head back into Carlos's chest, the expression on his face ecstasy mingled with unspeakable pain.

"He's worth _anything_."

"I'm not worth Spain!"

Before Carlos had a chance to say anything, Ana turned back around to face them, holding something in her hand. "Here," she sulked, holding it out to Carlos. "Take it. It doesn't bring me pleasure to be so cruel. Only, please, by the Holy Virgin, _hurry_!"

Carlos seized the poultice and pressed it to Rodrigo's bullet wound.

Within a few minutes, the Marquis had regained enough strength to hold it to his own back, letting it do its mysterious work. Meanwhile, Carlos gently laid him down on the ground, and began sorting out the package of clothing that Ana had smuggled into the prison.

"I'm still thought a traitor," Rodrigo pointed out. "Princess Eboli had better say that I took you as hostage, rather than escaped with you, so that your name will remain cleared."

"That makes sense," said Carlos. Ana busied herself tying him into his new dress, the ins and outs of which he, as a virgin and therefore never privileged to undress a woman, had no idea how to manipulate.

"They'll be looking for two men, not a man and a woman. A thousand devils, my prince, but you look..." Rodrigo lifted his eyebrows. "You make a peculiar woman!"

"Thank goodness for the veil," Carlos muttered.

"Is she not _exceptionally_ lovely, Marquis? Do you not--" She caught herself. "I'm sorry. I said I wasn't going to be mean."

That only made Carlos even more grateful for the veil.

Rodrigo stood up.

"You're healed!" Carlos rushed over to him, his movement hampered by the unfamiliar sensation of the skirts that now swirled around his legs.

Rodrigo enfolded him in his arms. There was much rustling of fabric.

Ana took up her position on the floor as if she'd been knocked there, like she'd planned. "Goodbye, Infante."

Carlos turned to look upon her, his arms still around Rodrigo. "Thank you."

"Now, go!" She waved them both off.

The Marquis de Posa and the sham Princess Eboli hurried out of the cell, then did their best to remain calm as they walked past the rows of guards. They didn't have the poultice anymore; its powers had been exhausted on saving Rodrigo, and they both knew it. If either of them were shot, that was the end. Especially if Carlos was found wearing a woman's dress.

Soon, they had slipped into the crisp night air, and hurried along in the street.

"Now where?" Carlos asked in as much of a whisper as he could manage.

"Your stepmother will be waiting for you at San Yuste," said Rodrigo, "You can say your farewells, and then--for Flanders!"

"I'll go anywhere my kidnapper takes me," said Carlos, emboldened by the veil.

"But you go freely--"

"Of course."

"If you want to stay here, now that your name is cleared--"

"No! I'm with you--forever. We swore it."

Rodrigo repeated back to Carlos the words of the prince's oath. "Should my Carlos beckon through his mask, I'll press his hand in silence as I pass..."

"And we should be as one."

They walked out of the city wrapped safely in that silence, and surely were they as one.

**Author's Note:**

> Continued somewhat saucily in "Olive Oil and Orange Trees"; you can stop here if you want.


End file.
